Wednesday, November 30, 2011

As some of you may already know, I'm quite anal about my polish setup/storage. So, when I recently purchased all 46 of the Bundle Monster stamping plates, I was first and foremost concerned about how I was going to store them!

I started doing some research to see what others were using and I came up with a lot of results of people using modified photo albums to store their plates.

I didn't remember seeing Rebecca's post about this but apparently that's how she stores her plates and she even had a tutorial for how to modify the albums! So, I went out and picked up an inexpensive 4x6 inch photo album and I started off using her tutorial as a guide. However, I soon decided that it was taking too much time for me so I changed it up a bit.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Today I have a tutorial for one of my retro designs! I finished up with my retro series last week but this design seems to have been the most popular of the series and I've gotten several requests to do a tutorial for it.

Despite looking complex, this is a pretty simple design so don't be intimidated!

Monday, November 28, 2011

Yes, more animal print nail art from me. Will you ever tire of it? I know I won't!

Today's design is a recreation of this mani by Nailside, the queen of tape manis. Personally, I generally stay away from tape manis just because I don't have the patience to wait for my base colour to dry before using the tape. So, I freehanded the chevrons for my mani using a striping brush and then I left that to dry overnight. This morning I taped off the edges of the chevrons and then stamped the leopard print into the silver chevrons.

Anyways, hope you like it! I like that it's a different and unique take on animal print but that it's still animal print, haha.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Today I have my very first guest post for you! This post comes from my friend and fellow polish addict Marcy. Marcy will be showing you one of her new Nerdlacquer polishes and she'll be giving you all the info about the Nerdlacquer brand.

Hello Kayla's followers! My name is Marcy the Blogless and I’m very happy to be posting here and sharing this lovely polish with you.

Today I am showing Pinin' for the Fjords by Nerdlacquer. Nerdlacquer’s are available from Amanda on her Etsy shop. Amanda combines two of my loves -- nail polish and all things geeky -- into one amazing package. She has a line of glitter polishes all based on “sci-fi faves and other geekery.” For me it was love at first sight.

Pinin' for the Fjords is part of the Something Completely Different series of polishes inspired by Monty Python's Flying Circus. Nerdlacquer describes Pinin' for the Fjords as “sparkling Norwegian blue with lavender and silver glitter, small and medium sky blue hexagonal glitter, charcoal micro glitter, and large silver hex glitter.” I call it an opaque light slate blue base with lavender, silver and dark gray glitter, blue small hexagonal glitter and silver large hexagonal glitter, so essentially the same description!

Pinin' for the Fjords applied easily and was opaque in 2 coats. The glitter spread out nicely on the nail and the large pieces didn’t have to be individually placed as they often do in these types of polishes.

This is Pinin' for the Fjords taken indoors, no base coat, 2 coats of Pinin' for the Fjords and one coat of Seche Vite. Despite all the glitter my nails feel perfectly smooth with just one coat of Seche Vite on top.

This is Pinin' for the Fjords in the shade.

And Pinin' for the Fjords in the sun.

Here is a close-up so you can see the various kinds of glitter. I reiterate that this was completely smooth with one coat of Seche Vite. The three dimensional look is the glitter suspended in the two different coats. It doesn’t protrude at all. I love how the small glitter pieces looks like they're floating above the big pieces of silver hex glitter.

This is the contents of my package from Nerdlacquer. It is a lousy phone picture as I wasn’t planning to write a blog post about the polishes when I opened the package. I just wanted to share the Nerdy goodness with my polish buddies. Everything was nicely wrapped and tied with a cute ribbon. Amanda included a nerdy flashing ring that my 3-year-old is enjoying.

These are all the polishes I ordered from Nerdlacquer.

Argentum (you can Marcy's guest post on this shade over on Rebecca's blog), Don’t Blink, Outed by a Probot, 500, Event Horizon, I Think You Call Me … Sexy, Cold & Calculating, Pinin’ for the Fjords, All of Time and Space and Crunchy Frog. I got 500 because I bought Nerdlacquer’s 500th bottle of polish! It is a custom bottle she made for me on the spot and included for free.

Just to make you jealous here is a picture of 500, in all its magnificence. Sadly you can’t order it. It’s all mine.

Nerdlacquers are available at bystringtheory and are $8 for a full-size 15ml bottle or $12 for a set of four mini 5ml bottles, including a little gift box. If you like glittery polishes you won’t be disappointed in these. And if you are a nail polish geek who revels in Doctor Who, Monty Python and the like in addition to polish you'll be thrilled. Nerdlacquer has a brand new HOLOday collection you should check out as well!

As a footnote if you want to see the hilarity that Pinin' for the Fjords was named for, watch this video. You will then understand Amanda's description of the gorgeous Pinin' for the Fjords fully and her brilliance in creating this polish.

I hope you guys enjoyed my first guest post by Marcy! If it wasn't for her I wouldn't have known about this really cool brand of polish and now I've got my eyes on quite a few Nerdlacquer polishes so hopefully you'll be seeing more of them here in the future.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Today I have what will probably be the last post for my retro series. I knew this probably wouldn't be a long series but I still really enjoyed it and I hope you have as well.

Today's mani was once again inspired by an image that I found through google by just typing in "retro pattern" in the image search. I was really drawn to this image (pictured below) but I wanted to change it up just a bit so I took further inspiration from this mani by Emerald Sparkled.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Welcome to November's featured blog post!
For my newer followers who haven't seen one of my featured blog posts before, check out my Featured Blogs tab at the top of the page for more information.

This month's blog was suggested to me by some Facebook friends who said that blog owner is really great at freehand nail art. Not that I doubted them for a second but they were SO right - this girl is amazing! How did I not know about her blog before?!

On her blog you'll find a mix of nail polish swatches, freehand nail art, as well as easy-to-follow tutorials. She's currently participating in the 31 day nail challenge (that I would so like to take part in but I simply don't have the time) and she's doing some really awesome designs for the challenge! She updates frequently and the layout of her site is simple and easy to navigate, which I always appreciate.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Today I have a new collection by Color Club to show you! I showed you guys this last week in a haul post after Rebecca was able to clear out the entire display so that we could each have the full collection.

This is a scented holiday collection that is exclusive to Sally Beauty Supply Stores, which is strange since Sally Beauty normally does not carry Color Club. Oh well, I can't complain!

Monday, November 21, 2011

I don't know how many of you know about "Movember" but I'll briefly fill you in. Movember takes place each November when men worldwide grow moustaches in order to raise funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer.

I really love the whole idea behind Movember and since I can't participate in the traditional sense by actually growing a moustache, I wanted to participate in my own way, so I created a moustache mani! I really like how it turned out - it's simple but it gets the point across.

Also, if anyone else has already done a moustache mani, you'll be able to agree with me that moustaches are harder to draw on your nails than one might think! They seem easy enough but the difficulty lies in getting the symmetry perfect.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Today I'll be announcing the winner of my piCture pOlish giveaway! Sorry it's taken so long with this but like I said earlier in the week, I've been swamped with school work/exams lately.

Before I announce the winner, I want to say another thank you to the girls at piCture pOlish for giving me the opportunity to offer one lucky reader a chance to try their polishes.

I'd also like to thank everyone who participated in the giveaway and who took the time to leave a comment. I really loved reading all of the comments you guys left for me in the giveaway form and that's become my absolute favourite reason to host giveaways. It makes the time that goes into running them totally worth it just to read all of your comments.

So without further adieu, the winner of 3 piCture pOlish shades of their choice is...

Beth I!

Congratulations! I've emailed Beth and she has 48 hours to respond and claim her prize. If she doesn't respond, I will randomly pick another winner.

Thanks again to everyone who participated! And don't get too discouraged if you didn't win, I've got another giveaway in the works that I will most likely run when I reach 2500 followers and there'll be more than one winner!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

My stamping obviously still needs work but I'm a beginner so give me some time to get it right. I'm really loving stamping so far though! The possibilities are literally endless now that I can stamp and do freehand art!

P.S. A few of you have contacted me wondering who won my piCture pOlish giveaway. I haven't yet had enough time to verify all of the entries but I promise the winner will be announced sometime this weekend.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Today I have something very exciting for you - my very first mani that includes stamping! This is probably much more exciting for me than it is for you but I'm totally in love with this! I had trouble getting started with stamping but I think I've finally figured it out.

I didn't have much time last night so although I wanted to use my new plates, I needed something that wouldn't take much time. I settled for the Bundle Monster rose image, I put it on a light teal background with some freehand stripes and viola, vintage roses! I originally wanted to use the rose image to replicate Rebecca's rose mani but I thought it was best to start off as simple as possible so I'll save that for another time.

Monday, November 14, 2011

I want to quickly let you guys know that I might not be around much this week due to an overwhelming amount of school work that I'm going to be doing. I usually try to write up enough posts over the weekend to get me through the following week but I wasn't even able to do that this past weekend. Thus, you might only see a couple of posts this week from me. Next week should be back to normal though!

Anyways, today I have a comparison for you that I promised I would do in my review post of the China Glaze Eye Candy Collection. This comparison is between China Glaze's Love Marilyn from the Eye Candy Collection and OPI's Gettin' Miss Piggy With it from the Muppets Collection.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

So after I received all of my Bundle Monster plates a couple of days ago, I knew what the first mani I wanted to recreate was going to be. I saw this design on Let them have Polish and I instantly fell in love with it (are you surprised?).

For some reason I thought the design was created using 2 separate stamping images, just strategically placed. However, after reading the post more carefully, I realized that it's actually 1 image (Konad m78) and unfortunately, I don't have that plate. So, I freehanded it! I changed the design up a bit but it's still the same general idea. And now the Konad m78 plate is on my to-buy list.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Before I get to today's post I just want to let you all know that I'm actively working on fixing my sidebar. I have no idea why it's all of a sudden transparent instead of black - I haven't done any editing to it! I've contacted the designer of the template so I'm hoping he can help me out. In the meantime, if any of you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Edit: Sidebar is fixed! However, now there's a problem with the commenting system. Below each of my posts is says "Comments (0)" but there are in fact comments once you click on the post and you can still leave comments on my posts. I'm now working on having this fixed. Oi.

Anyways, today's post is a haul consisting of some polishes and other nail art goodies that I got this week.

Bundle Monster Stamping Plates: Set 1 (21 plates) and Set 2 (25 plates)
My BM plates finally came! I am so excited to now be able to stamp and do freehand nail art! I'm going to be playing with these a lot in the coming weeks so look forward to some stamping nail art from me!

Color Club Scent-uous Collection: Gingerbread Man, Kiss Me Mistletoe, Santa's Cinnamon, Orna-minted, Sugar Plum Yum, Very Merry Berry
This is, oddly enough, a Sally Beauty Supply exclusive collection for Holiday 2011 and I honestly didn't have much hope that I would be able to get it here. However, Rebecca happened to spot them last week and cleared out the whole display for her and I!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I'm returning to my retro series today and the next google image design that I was inspired by was yet another polka dot design (picture below). What can I say, I'm an animal print and polka dot kind of gal! Hmm, maybe I should do a mani that's a combination of animal print and polka dots!

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Usually my local Sally's doesn't have much to offer but on my most recent trip I actually found a few things that interested me. I saw this little display of two top coats by Orly and I was intrigued, so I picked them up.

I remember the display having a name but I can't quite remember what it was and google isn't doing much to help me out. I think it was something like Shimmer & Shine, or something along those lines anyways. For now though I'm just going to call them Holiday Top Coats.

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

So I know I just started a retro series but a polish friend on Facebook linked to a really awesome manicure yesterday and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since, so I just had to replicate it.

That's SO Fresh is the blog this design originated from and I'm totally in love with this mani (surprise surprise, Kayla loves an animal print design, haha). She used a stamp for her design and although I have all of the Bundle Monster stamps on the way to me, I don't have them yet so I had to freehand the design. I think this is the perfect way to do animal print for this time of year!

Monday, November 07, 2011

Today I have another instalment of my Manicuring 101 Series for you! I know you guys like the posts from this series a lot so I'm trying my best to get them up more frequently.

For any of my newer followers who haven't seen any of the Manicuring 101 Series yet, check out the Manicuring 101 tab at the top of the page and you'll find links to all of the other instalments from this series.

Today's post will be a discussion of the different kinds of nail files that are available, what the purposes of the different types are as well as my own recommendations about which ones are best.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

One of my local supply stores has been really awesome lately because they've been getting all of their China Glaze Collections in either early or just on time, which is great because I'm so used to having to wait a while before we get collections here. I hope they continue being so awesome!

Because of the timely-ness of this supplier, today I have another China Glaze Holiday 2011 Collection for you - the Eye Candy Collection. This collection is inspired by the one and only Marilyn Monroe and consists of 6 glitter shades.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Sorry for the late post today! I wrote this post last night and scheduled it to publish today but I accidentally scheduled it for 2:00AM instead of 2:00PM. And I only just realized the mistake.

Anyways, today I have a review of a product that I started using back in July - OPI's Chip Skip. I originally started using this to try to extend the wear time of my Nfu-Oh Holographics, but I also continued to use it in my regular manicures to test its claims.

Friday, November 04, 2011

I'm really busy today and didn't think I would even get a chance to post at all but I just had to fill you all in on some exciting news from our favorite Australian brand - Glitter Gal!

Glitter Gal recently announced that they've listened to all of our feedback and in turn they're going to be releasing 15ml sized bottles of their polishes! In addition, they're holding a contest so that they can use the creativity of the nail polish community to name 13 of their current polishes. The winner(s) will receive a full range of Glitter Gal 3D Holo polishes and a full range of Glitter Gal Sparkle polishes - all in the new 15ml size!

I won't go into any further detail here and instead I'll direct you to the video below which explains everything and provides all of the information that you need to participate in this contest.

So get your creative juices flowing and win yourself some awesome polishes!

Thursday, November 03, 2011

So after sporting Illamasqua's Load for a couple of days, I decided that I could finally bear to put some nail art over it. However, I would like to note that I think Load has actually become my all-time favourite polish. Yes, I love it that much. I'm going to have to ask one of my friends in the US to get one for me so that I can have a back-up!

Anyways, today's nail art design is the first of my new retro series and I found all of the inspiration for this series by simply typing "retro pattern" into google image search! There were so many awesome patterns to choose from but the first one I went with is a different sized connected polka dots one (shown below). However, I wanted to change it up just a bit so I chose some funkier colours for my design.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Today's post is a scheduled one because today is mine and my boyfriend's 5 year anniversary so we're going to be spending the day together!

Today I have a comparison for you that's probably a little late to the game but that I still wanted to do nonetheless. This is between Orly's Fowl Play from the Fall 2011 Birds of a Feather Collection and OPI's Merry Midnight which is a now hard to find shade from the Holiday 2009 Holiday Wishes Collection.

I was able to get my hands on Merry Midnight through a Facebook friend and although you would think it should have been easier to get Fowl Play considering it was only released a couple of months ago, it actually wasn't that simple!

For some reason, my local Sally's doesn't seem to get every new collection in and the Birds of a Feather Collection happens to be one of the ones they didn't get. That was definitely a bummer but my friend Sarah from Chalkboard Nails sold me a bottle of Fowl Play recently, so now I'm finally able to do a comparison of these two shades for you.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

So after you all made it clear that you liked my idea to have a retro inspired nail art series, I sat down last night to do my first mani of the series. I chose Illamasqua's Load as my base coat and after applying it, I simply couldn't bear to put any nail art over it! It's just TOO gorgeous on its own.

Load is a yellow based off-white creme and I don't even need to tell you how amazing the formula is because 1.) it's Illamasqua and I've come to expect nothing less and 2.) the flawless application that you can see in the photos says it all.

Load will be the base for my first retro mani that I'll do soon but for now I'm excited to just sport this alone for a couple of days.

This will be the first time in as long as I can remember that I'll be wearing a mani that doesn't include either nail art, glitter, a holographic effect, or some type of layering, but I'm really digging it! It's simple and fresh and the awesome application makes this mani look totally professional.